Lent: following jesus to...​february 18 - march 25, 2018

March 18, 2018 - Lent 5"Following Jesus to Conviction: Convicted by Faith and Empire"Scripture: John 19:1-16aJesus stands before Pilate and is convicted for treason, since he has taken on the crimes of Barabbas. Jesus stands before the crowd, the people of his faith, and is convicted of being a blasphemer. Both Pilate and the crowd convict Jesus on the basis of their convictions, their beliefs. Meaning stretches and bends when we stand at the intersection of different ways of being. What does it mean to have strong convictions? What does it mean to stand convicted? Just the audio for today. Peace and grace to all!

March 11, 2018 - Lent 4​"Following Jesus to Judgment: Who Judges Who?"Scripture: John 18:28-40The Gospel of John plays with words and ideas in order to shock us into new ways of thinking. One of the ideas that is dealt with in several places in John is 'judgment'. What does it mean to be judged by the imperial head of Jerusalem? What does it mean to be judged by God? What are we doing when we make judgments about what is good and what is bad, right and wrong? What does it mean to judge another person? The tension of judgment in the Gospel is meant to push us beyond our human and humanized ideas of what it means. Thank you to Brian Harden for leading the service and reading the sermon to the congregation this Sunday!I just have the PDF for the sermon and it is linked above. Peace and grace!

March 4, 2018 - Lent 3"Following Jesus to Struggle and Confrontation: Peter's Denial"Scripture: John 18:12-27Peter denies Jesus 3 times. That tells us, at the very least, that this is a VERY IMPORTANT moment that we should dwell on as we read Scripture. In this case, I think Peter is denying Time and he is denying Identity. As we follow Jesus to the Cross and then to the Resurrection, we will see ourselves along the path as well. If we deny Peter's experience by never seeing how we are very much like Peter, we will not complete the journey. The PDF is linked above. Audio is below. ​Peace and grace to all! Pastor Seth

February 25, 2018 - Lent 2"Following Jesus to RECEIVING: Receiving Christ"Scripture: John 13:1-20It is always surprising to me how much we impose on stories in Scripture, instead of just taking the story for the words on the page. The scene of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples has been used for all kinds of ideas about who we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to do. But, once again, the story tells us what it is about. Today, the last verse of the story tells us what Jesus is trying to teach the disciples: how to receive. We , as Westerners and Americans, are terrible at receiving. We are good at giving. We are good at taking. But we really have no idea how to receive anything. Only audio again this week. ​Peace and grace to all! Pastor Seth

February 18, 2018 - Lent 1"Following Jesus to AWAKENING: Unbound"Scripture: John 11:1-44The Raising of Lazarus is a powerful story with all kinds of points of understanding and interpretation. Today, I took Jesus' statement about awakening Lazarus from sleep and tried to understand what Jesus might mean by that. More than anything, the story of Lazarus is about the reality of death and the accompanying and right grief that goes with that reality; but it is also about the new reality that Jesus is bringing into the world - the reality of resurrection and life. There is only audio this week. Peace and grace! Pastor Seth